8.18.2011

Theme: Plus Signs — Three blocks of black squares look like plus signs and the first three (four?) letters of each theme answer can be a word having to do with addition.

Theme answers:

16A: Rikishi's contest (SUMO MATCH).

28A: City known as the political capital of Africa (ADDIS ABABA).

43A: Pacific Northwest cedar monuments (TOTEM POLES).

55A: The three in this grid are a hint to the starts of 16-, 28- and 43-Across (PLUS SIGNS).

First of all, I just want to say Happy Birthday to PuzzleHusband! What are we doing to celebrate? Well, I'm going to drop the PuzzleKids at day camp and drop my van off at the shop. He's going to meet me at the shop and give me a ride to work and then head off on a business trip. I will spend the rest of the day hoping and praying that the shop is able to finish its work on the van today so the kids and I aren't stranded. Oh, and somewhere in there we're hoping the landlord will somehow be able to fix our air conditioner. So, yeah. Looking like a great day ahead.

This puzzle was … not my favorite. I did notice the unusual grid pattern right off the bat, so that helped with the theme. I'm not entirely sure if the relevant part of the last theme answer is TOT or TOTE. Both have dictionary support for fitting with the theme. I want to say it's TOT so that each of the three theme answers starts out with three theme letters to go along with the three plus signs in the grid. So, okay, let's go with that.

Tons of crosswordese and uninteresting fill in this one. A few gems distinguish themselves from the crowd:

35A: Reorganize, and then some (SHAKE UP).

7D: Prom corsage (ORCHID).

11D: Prepare for the hot tub (DISROBE).

36D: Jeter's 3,000th hit, e.g. (HOME RUN).

They're offset by words that just sit there — like AMMETER, LOOKED, OBTAIN, COMPILER — and a couple real clunkers — AEROBAT and AT A TIME, I'm looking at you. So, overall, as I said, not my favorite. Don and C.C. have set the bar pretty high for themselves, though, so that might be part of it.

45 comments:

I wanted the plusses to be something that looked like plusses, I guess because I got the TOTEM POLE first, and with the eagle wings, they do. Googled Rikishi, but it didn't get me off my visual interpretation.

Also, Googled "facepalm," which I had never heard of.

Didn't get Polo Club #4. His name can be Googled with Polo Club after knowing the connection, but articles on the Polo Clubs I - IV don't make the connection. If you don't know sports, you just don't know sports. Given the choice of putting time into knowing sports and a life w/o, would still choose the latter.

@sfingi - you don't need to know a lot of sports but anytime it's a three letter answer referred to in baseball, whether it's Giants, or Mel, or Polo Grounds it's got to be Ott - crosswordese - it's the three letter answer that's the clue - and he was one of the greats.

I really didn't want to be a downer but I felt this puzzle played against every stereotype of what I don't want a puzzle to be. Nothing overly difficult assuming you have memorized the requisite crosswordese but nothing too satisfying either.

The crossword-ese didn't annoy me as much as it does sometimes, mostly pretty mild examples... It's funny I loved COMPILER: as a hobbyist programmer I had no idea what the clue was getting at till it emerged from the crosses! Liked AMMETER too so put that down to a personal quirk. Still not sure I've encountered the phrase SUMOMATCH, but it was in another crossword... My only encounter with ORTs was in bits >left over< from dog bowls which was discussed in Animal Nutrition... Fun clue for OBOE, though I see it has been done before. How did I still manage to forget you guys are upside-down and try and fit SEP/OCT and NOV for APR!!

A little late to the party, but I knew when I was solving today that @Sfingi would be miffed about OTT, but interestingly doesn't seem so upset about HOMERUN which I thought needed more specific sporting knowledge. Maybe because the event was so newsworthy it filtered into the non-sporting knowledge base.

I kinda liked the theme, I wasn't too upset about the fill - it is Thursday. Learned ELEANORA, AUEL and ARA. Had riO before SAO, DoT before DIT, LOOsED before LOOKED.

I love GNU - whenever I see the word it reminds me of a silly drawing done by English comedian Spike Milligan - two gnus are show with a clock face drawn on their flanks with the hands pointing to 9PM. The caption reads "The Nine O'Clock Gnus".

@PG - didn't see the grid pattern. Thanks for pointing that out.

Not at all sure about AEROBAT - sure, aerobatics are airplane stunts, but I've NEVER heard the pilot described as an aerobat. My neighbor some years ago was a world-famous aerobatic pilot named Randy Gagne (sadly no longer with us, he died in a plane crash teaching aerobatics to a pupil) and he was a stunt pilot.

The LAT puzzle has been available in Across Lite (AL) format on cruciverb.com for some time but today I see that the cruciverb page layout has changed and the AL section doesn't have the LAT. I wonder if this is temporary and the AL option for the LAT will return? Anyone have any info on this?

I thought that working in ADDISABABA, the capital of Ethopia, was rather awesome.

As an old Morse code operator, I had DoT before DIT, noting that the dots and dashes of the code are also known as dits and dahs, like "C" being dah-dit-dah-dit. It seems like dots, dits, dashes, and dots should all be crosswordese 101.Seemed like a ROUTINE cw.

I'm not feeling the ennui for the puzzle as most are, thought there were some good things in it like AMMETER and COMPILER, things that I have used during my career. Its differences in perspectives coupled with witty crossword write-ups that keep me coming here.

Well, I count it as a finish, although I left it open as to whether there is such a thing as a COW PILER. I had AM METER, and just didn't like it. My electric meter doesn't say Amperes on it, but shows KW for kilowatts consumed.A fairly dull one, I thought. Mainly because of a lack of discoveries!

Hey, guys, lay off @Sfingi! I got OTT out of the 3 letters and the #4 in the clue, but wasn't confident until I checked the crosses. Who knew they played baseball at a place called Polo grounds? Isn't polo that sport for the rich and royal and their horses?

I really liked this puzzle, not sure why, except I spent a few years early in my careering TOTing up numbers. This was before personal computers or even smart terminals, kids. We used abaci. No not really, adding machines with a tape. I also remember using a COMPILER when I wrote computer programs in college/grad school.

@xxpossum, as to 52D, a Gibson is a cocktail made with GIN, and some other stuff.

- "Picked locks" for AFRO- I thought "Polo Grounds #4" was a pretty original way to clue the ubiquitous OTT. Requires more sports knowledge, sure, but it is a Thursday.- [Facepalm] for DOH was my favorite.

Not so positive about ACS, and when have you ever seen an ORCHID as a corsage? I figured it was TOP banana, but TOP seed was quite a head-scratcher. Another sports reference.

Puzzle constructors must thank their lucky stars for Jean AUEL. She's probably enabled more crosswords to be completed than any other name.

Puzzle was ok. Got the theme right away with the plus signs in the puzzle. Wrote in PLUSSIGNS before any crosses even though I was hoping for cross[something] But I feel like I've seen this theme somewhere before, not too long ago.

Unlike @PG I liked AEROBAT and got it with the E and O filled in. It's like an acrobat but in the air.

In Great Britain, a stutter is referred to as a stammer. Sometimes a layperson might refer to a stammer as a milder form of stuttering, but technically, there is no difference-other than the country in which it's used......A speech-language pathologist

However st(utt)(amm)erers have a rather wide vocabulary of word-substitution - if I'm ever describing my speech problem, I'll describe it as a stammer - it's easier to say. Add in alternatives to every word you find a problem to say and you've got yourself a whole bunch of crossword answers.

Never thought of it like that before. Who'd a thunk it?

Oh - and @Sfingi - never stammer/stutter when I sing/sang. It's pretty ugly being as I can't hold a note, but I'm pretty fluent.

@Keith - your electric meter displays KWH (kilo-watt hours). Watts are calculated by volts x amps, so the meter is actually measuring amps and integrating them over time to record kwh (since the voltage is essentially constant).